Meredith is certainly brave. After the video of Ray surfaced two Twitter hashtags went viral. The first, #WhyIStayed inspires women to share their experiences with domestic abuse, while #WhyILeft encourages them to share the moment when they finally left the terrible situation.

During her Sept. 17, episode Meredith explains why she stayed, and the moment she knew she needed to leave. Explains why she stayed in a former abusive relationship,”I was in an abusive relationship many, many years ago as a young woman. I’ve talked a little bit about this. I loved this guy,” she admits. “It started out that we would have a fight and he would just sort of grab my arm and I didn’t think a lot about it.

The former Today Show host then revealed that things escalated. “Then it turned into pushing me against the wall and then it actually went beyond that to him taking his hand and grabbing my face and saying, ‘I could ruin your career if I wanted to and no one would watch you.'”

Meredith revealed that while she had the means to get out of the situation, it was not that simple. “I had a job at the time, and I kept in this relationship. I’ve done a lot of thinking about why, and I think part of it was fear, I was scared of him and scared that if I tried to leave, something worse could happen to me,” she said. “Part of it was guilt because everything we would have a fight he would then start crying and say, ‘I promise I won’t do it again’ and I would feel like maybe I had contributed somehow to this.”

The Moment Meredith Vieira Knew She Needed To Escape The Relationship

Meredith heartbreakingly revealed the worst night of the abuse.”Then there was the night, we shared an apartment and he threw me into a shower naked in scalding water and then he threw me outside into the hallway, we lived in an apartment building,” she said.

I hid in a stairwell for two hours until he came again crying saying, ‘I promise I won’t do this again,’ and I continued to stay in that relationship until I was offered another job in another state. That’s where I felt that I had the ability to get away. “

“Domestic violence … is really, really a complicated issue,” she said. “It’s not so easy to just get away. You think it would be, but it’s not.”